Sectarian Violence Racks India

Neighbors battled neighbors with sticks, steel rods and swords in the narrow dirt lanes of this city’s Naroda district, where dozens of homes and shops were looted and burned during three days of violence between Hindus and Muslims.

The charred remains of a man’s corpse still lay this morning where his killers set him ablaze, outside a one-story house in Naroda’s poor Jawaharnagar neighborhood, on Ahmadabad’s north side. The body was surrounded by the burnt steel frame of a cot. The man’s fists were frozen in the air, as if he died struggling to get up.

More than 275 people have died since a mob in the town of Godhra in western India set fire to a train carrying Hindu nationalists Wednesday from the northern Indian city of Ayodhya, where right-wing Hindus want to build a temple on the site of a mosque destroyed in 1992. At least 58 people, including 14 children, died in the train attack. The toll from the reprisals has grown by the day.

A year ago, Ahmadabad, like Godhra a part of Gujarat state, was reeling from a massive earthquake. Now it is struggling to stop a convulsion of violence rooted in the ancient feud over religion.

Hindu nationalists want to build a temple honoring Rama, an avatar or incarnation of the god Vishnu, on what they say was the original site of a temple demolished in the 16th century and replaced by a mosque known as the Babri Masjid. A Hindu mob destroyed the mosque on Dec. 6, 1992.

The right-wing Vishwa Hindu Parishad party says it will defy a court order and try to build a Hindu temple at the Ayodhya site as early as March 15, but Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee has sent thousands of paramilitary police to stop the group.

The Hindu nationalist group has offered a compromise: It would postpone its plan to build the temple for three months, giving the government more time to resolve the issue, if its supporters are allowed to pray at the disputed site over newly carved pillars for the temple.

The 1992 razing of the 16th century mosque sparked nationwide riots that killed 2,000 people.

Hindus are the majority in India, but 140 million of its 1 billion people are Muslims. There were fears that the violence would spread across the country, but so far it mostly has been limited to Ahmadabad and other parts of Gujarat state.

It is clear from the damage that people went from door to door, looting and burning in a crowded neighborhood with few avenues of escape.

The corpse of the burned man won’t enter the official death toll until it is collected and delivered to the morgue. But by Friday night, local hospitals said they had received 65 bodies from the Naroda district, just one of several ravaged by mobs.

“They killed four Hindus and pulled their eyes out,” said one resident, Ram Kirit Pannalal, 35. “Then they stuck swords in their stomachs and split them. They started shouting, ‘Now we’ll show you!’ ”

In the village of Pandavarda, near Godhra, a mob herded at least 30 people into a house and burned them alive Friday afternoon, police said.

In another attack, a crowd of about 200 swarmed six people walking next to a highway, about 30 miles from Godhra, and set them on fire.

And officials said today that a Hindu mob torched the Muslim village of Sardarpura late Friday, killing at least 27 people.

The fighting in Naroda began Thursday about 10 a.m., several survivors said today. A few buildings were still smoldering in the area, where several blocks of houses and shops were looted and torched.

It is a scene reminiscent of “ethnic cleansing” during the collapse of the Yugoslav federation, and although India’s current unrest is a far cry from the Balkan agony, it has shocked a country that prides itself on religious tolerance.

Hindu survivors in Naroda complained today that Gujarat state police, sent to restore order, actually stood by as Muslim mobs went on a killing spree.

And then, on Friday night, the police moved about 500 Muslim residents to “a safer place,” Pannalal said. “We’ll never allow them back,” said Pannalal, who was armed with a chain and a stick. He stood menacingly with a small group of men and boys, guarding the invisible border between their neighborhood and the gutted remains of Jawaharnagar.

Pannalal and Jagdish Tombar, 30, claimed that about 15 of their Muslim neighbors of starting the trouble by throwing stones.

“It was organized. They had buckets full of stones,” Pannalal said through an interpreter. “They attacked us, and then we got agitated too. Even women started attacking.”

As the violence escalated, police did not open fire or do anything else to disperse the mobs, the men claimed. Other survivors have made similar accusations.

Residents of Ahmadabad set up self-defense groups, fearing more violence this weekend.

“I appeal to you for calm, the troops are here, please cooperate with them,” Defense Minister George Fernandes told an angry group of people who said police inaction had left Muslims at the mercy of extremists.

A curfew has been imposed in 37 towns across the state and 1,500 people have been arrested in the violence, including 63 on murder charges in the train attack, said Gujarat Home Secretary K. Nityanandam.

Police opened fire during one clash between Hindu and Muslim youths, killing six people and wounding 70, said Deputy Police Commissioner R.J. Savani.

The city was mainly quiet this morning, but most shops were closed and several thousand police and soldiers guarded key areas with orders to shoot on sight to stop further riots, looting or arson.

Vajpayee has also come under intense criticism because many here think that he was too slow in sending in troops. A crowd pelted Fernandes on Friday in Ahmadabad when he tried to calm them.

Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi said he had sought more troops and reserve police forces from neighboring states. “I have been assured all forces will be made available to bring peace. We are making progress,” Modi said.